The Club of Rome and Girolamo Prigione: between the transformations of State-Church relations in Mexico and their differences with left-wing Catholicism

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present a historical analysis of Girolamo Prigione's diplomatic work in Mexico and the networks he consolidated to, on the one hand, become the privileged interlocutor with the government (together with a select group of bishops who formed the Club of Rome) and, on the other hand, to lead the destiny of the Church in the country. To this end, his work will be approached from the perspective of the groups inclined to Liberation Theology, who saw in him a more political than pastoral work. This is the original element, since the facts are reconstructed from the experience of this sector of the Mexican Episcopate and the tensions that the protagonism of the Club of Rome generated in the rest of the Episcopate Conference, an aspect little addressed in the existing historiography.

In order to fulfill this purpose, articles published in the national press of the time were reviewed, which allow us to know the position of the actors at the time of the events; interviews were conducted with people involved in the process; unpublished documents from the Historical Archive of the Archbishopric of Mexico were consulted and specialized bibliography on the subject was included.